what is the author's purpose for dicussing all of the affairs the judge needed to attend to on the day of his death

I think it paints a picture of what the judge will not be able to do rather than what he was supposed to do. The judge, with all his influence and money, is dead. Hawthorne leaves us wondering if Clifford killed him or he simply suffered the fate of Colonel Pyncheon. In any case, the judge has run out of time. There is a creepy destiny in his fate that has plagued this family for centuries.